What Gordon noted was that the mistakes didn’t last long. Sanheim had a short memory for the negatives and one gaffe in the first period was ancient history by the third.

“Once I made that mistake I let it go and moved on,” Sanheim said. “I think that’s something that throughout my career…you can’t let one mistake affect your entire game because you’re going to end up making more mistakes than just that one.”

Monday night, Sanheim made a mistake. He gave the puck up in the neutral zone in overtime. Seven seconds later the puck was in his net. The Arizona Coyotes ended the longest winless streak to start a season in NHL history.

Ivan Provorov felt his pain.

As the Flyers head to Chicago, last year’s trip doesn’t give Provorov nightmares anymore. He said it never did. He was a minus-5 in the 7-4 loss to the Blackhawks, Provorov’s third NHL game.

So his advice to Sanheim Monday night, in essence, was to have a short memory.

“Stuff like that happens,” Provorov said. “There will be games where you’ll be minus-whatever. You see (Ottawa’s Erik) Karlsson was minus-6 (Monday) night. I had a game against Chicago last year where I was a minus-5. Those games are gonna happen and you’re gonna make mistakes. You’ve just got to be able to learn from them and limit the mistakes.”

So far this season, the Flyers have shown great confidence in Sanheim, Robert Hagg and rookies Taylor Leier and Nolan Patrick. Had Sanheim’s turnover come in regulation, he almost surely would have gotten another shift.

That’s important because young players can fear the next mistake won’t just cost them a game, but also a roster spot. Sanheim made the roster over Samuel Morin, another big defenseman who the Flyers said is ready for the big show if only they had the space in their lineup.

With an injury to Shayne Gostisbehere over the weekend, the Flyers attempted to recall Morin. He showed up to the rink and according to general manager Ron Hextall, Morin, “didn’t disclose 100 percent of his injury.” What he tried to play through will take him out of the lineup for “maybe a couple weeks.”

For now, Sanheim can rest easy about that player taking his job. But there are always others.

“Especially at this level, any time you make a mistake it’s always in your head,” said Sanheim, who has one assist in nine games and is a minus-6. “You can’t control certain things (like getting sent back or taken out of the lineup) and mentally you’ve got to be strong and ready to move forward from it.”

He’s shown that he can do that and more so than a stay-at-home defenseman like Morin, Sanheim can make up for the miscues with his offense. Teams are willing to trade an occasional blown coverage in the first period for a goal and an assist later.

As for fearing the short leash, that’s something players must deal with on their own. Last season it looked like Dave Hakstol had Travis Konecny and Shayne Gostisbehere in his crosshairs at times. Perhaps part of that was that those players being healthy scratched came later in the season when the stakes were a little higher. This season it appears he’s more willing to let the players grow at their own pace.

Hextall disputes the notion that Hakstol was ever too hard on the young players, or that they felt they had to look over their shoulder in the past.

“Pro hockey’s competitive,” Hextall said. “If you’re not playing the right way or well up to your standards, there’s a risk of players being sat out. That’s just the way it is and quite frankly it should be like that. That’s what makes players good and you ask our players about training camp and they say we had a good training camp because it was competitive. Everybody’s sort of looking like, ‘Ooh, we’ve got some good players here.’ That’s part of being a pro athlete. It’s not handed to you and you get what you deserve for the most part.”

“They understand there’s gonna be a learning experience here for me,” Sanheim added. “We’re just trying to move that process along as fast as we can and make the mistakes as little as possible. I think I’m starting to see growth in my game in the last few games and weeks. I’ve just got to continue on that path.”